/lit/ - Literature

Since everything is called a cope here, what isn’t a cope?

Art has never had objective value and has always been a vehicle for personal expression.

It's an obvious point to make that right-wing ideologues like PragerU have an innate mistrust of that which is 'new' by virtue of their being conservative. Yet, I believe, another aspect of their is really the key to understanding this issue: they believe that capitalism is inherently meritocratic. The right is predisposed to dislike contemporary art which succeeds without the impression that the artist has either some arbitrary, preconceived level of skill or time investment into it because it challenges their misguided conception of a capitalist society in which success is "earned".

This is why they so desperately cling to specious ideas like "objective" standards or "objective" skill, as evidenced by this video. Obviously such a critique is more immediately applicable to the art world where simple installation pieces sell for enormous prices, but this can apply to the world of literature too.

Choosing to or claiming to follow a particular set of artistic standards is, in itself, a form of artistic expression. The value in whether an artist does fall within a particular set of artistic boundaries, or follows a certain standard for any given convention, is subjective and any and all of us can decide if we like it or not, it doesn't stop that work from being art.

Maybe this thread is bait, but I felt like writing this.